Making Money, Making War

Making Money, Making War

Rosella Cappella Zielinski

Publisher:

Cornell University Press

DOI:10.7591/cornell/9781501702495.003.0001

This introductory chapter discusses the topic of war finance and the significance of its study, arguing that military power stems from an economic base. Without wealth, soldiers cannot be paid, weapons cannot be procured, and food cannot be bought. States, however, do not act in a vacuum. They are constrained by domestic and international politics. Understanding how states finance war is essential to understanding the extent to which state capacity and leaders' preferences affect a state's ability to meet its foreign policy goals via military and economic power as well as its pursuit of domestic macroeconomic stability. In doing so the chapter lays out the groundwork for a discussion into the variations of war finance policies.

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